Israel cannot fall into a state of over-self-confidence - opinion

The anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations at numerous US academic institutions, from Ivy League universities to state universities and private colleges, and the decisions of several universities, including Columbia University and UCLA, to call in police forces to break up the demonstrations and arrest their participants, have drawn a lot of media attention, and have created a good deal of concern and debate.

What we know for a fact is that the background to these demonstrations is the Israeli invasion and massive destruction of the Gaza Strip in the last seven months, with over 30,000 Palestinian casualties (many of them children), for which Israel is being falsely accused of having committed acts of genocide.

Israel’s retaliatory/defensive action was triggered by an infiltration, on October 7, of around 3,000 Hamas fighters/terrorists and an accompanying rabble of Gazan civilians, to the Gaza border communities. The infiltrators committed acts of murder, torture, rape, looting, and numerous other heinous crimes, which resulted in over 1,200 Israelis and dozens of foreigners being killed, and around 250 being kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. It is also a fact that the background of the Israeli invasion is totally ignored by the protesters.

We also know for a fact that these demonstrations have been accompanied by the demonstrators setting up unauthorized encampments on the premises of the universities and demands that the universities in which the demonstrations have taken place not only call for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip (the return of the Israeli hostages, who are considered a red herring by many of the protesters, is not mentioned), but also that they sever all economic and academic contacts with Israel.

The antisemitic rhetoric of the demonstrations

In addition, the rhetoric in these demonstrations frequently flows over into pure antisemitism, while Jewish students and academic staff are frequently harassed and intimidated. At the same time, it cannot be denied that there are Jewish participants among the demonstrators, most of whom are driven by severe criticism of Israel and sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.

In Israel, we are understandably inclined to be intolerant towards these persons and accuse them of suffering from self-hatred. While as a rule I maintain that there is nothing wrong with being critical of one’s own people, or even feeling alienated from them, within the current context, and the antisemitism deliberately or incidentally expressed by many of the non-Jewish demonstrators, I resent seeing Jews actively participate in these demonstrations, though they have an absolute right to do so.

HOWEVER, side by side with the things we know as hard facts, there are many unknowns in this story. First of all, there is the question of whether there is some external factor that is financing and/or directing the demonstrations from the outside. It is pointed out that since the beginning of the millennium, Qatar has poured over $4.5 billion into American universities (including Ivy League schools), inter alia for the establishment of departments of Middle Eastern studies.

Qatar has denied that it has anything to do with the current demonstrations, but that does not necessarily mean that it is innocent on this matter. Incidentally, Saudi Arabia has also poured vast sums of money into American universities, but it is not suspected of supporting Hamas in the current embroilment, as is Qatar.

Another unknown, at the moment, is what percentage of the demonstrators are not affiliated in any form with the universities in which the demonstrations are taking place or have taken place. We also do not know how many of the demonstrators are Muslims – Arab or other – who are either American citizens or citizens of Muslim states and how many are not.

We also do not know whether, at least in the short run, some of the universities where demonstrations erupted will give in to some of the demands of the demonstrators to boycott Israel. We also do not know what the long-term effect of some of the universities asking the police to enter their premises and crush the demonstrations will be.

It is generally considered “not to be done” for universities to call in the police when issues connected to freedom of speech and freedom of demonstration are involved. Doing so is usually a very rare event, such as what occurred back in 1968 over the Vietnam War, when the NYPD forcefully broke up violent protests.

Now it has occurred again, and the question has reemerged at what point it becomes not only permissible but even necessary to involve the forces responsible for peace and order. In some of the locations where the police intervened it is claimed that excessive force was used. The other day I listened to an interview on the British Sky News with a Jewish woman in her 60s who was injured by the police during one of the incidents in the US last week, where, according to her, excessive force was used. Sounds familiar.

Though many of the American campuses where the demonstrations have been taking place have now been “cleared,” it is doubtful whether the phenomenon has come to an end. On the contrary, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli demonstrations appear to be spreading around the world – both in universities and outside of them – and, with them, manifestations of antisemitism are emerging.

No less worrying, in the field of academia, is the fact that many Israeli academics are finding it increasingly difficult to get invited to international conferences, to receive foreign funding for research projects, or to find partners abroad willing to collaborate in such projects. In addition, many academics are having difficulty getting their articles accepted for publication in serious academic journals – quality apparently no longer counts for much.

As this article is being written, hopes are rising again that despite everything, a new agreement is being worked out in Cairo for the release of all the hostages in return for some sort of ceasefire. The nature of the ceasefire seems to be the main problem, since we appear to be unwilling to commit ourselves to a complete ending of the war and a complete withdrawal of our forces from the Gaza Strip, as Hamas is demanding.

However, if despite everything, an agreement is reached and Israel will undertake to leave aside – for the time being – its plans to enter Rafah and clear it from the remainders of an organized Hamas fighting force, perhaps there will be a respite in the current anti-Israel demonstrations abroad, and some relief from international pressures, which include, besides violent demonstrations, economic, educational, and cultural boycotts and even threats to break off diplomatic relations with Israel. Widespread recognition of a Palestinian state, at least in principle, which appears to be on the international agenda these days, might also be put off for a while.

As we commemorate the six million victims of the Holocaust on Sunday night and Monday, let us remember that the main difference between then and today is the fact that today we have an independent state of our own and, consequently, much greater control over our fate.

Nevertheless, what we have discovered in the last seven months is that if we fall into a state of arrogance over self-confidence and fail to act judiciously in our policy choices and external relations, we are liable to lose control and lose much of what we have achieved in our 76 years of independence.

The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members – A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.